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ing its pre-2014 or even pre-2022 borders, and any plausible cessation of hostilities will involve painful concessions by Kiev.

This doesn’t justify adopting an ahistorical perspective on the war and blaming Ukraine for its plight. Realpolitik is one thing; needlessly insulting an ally and condemning it in perversely moralizing terms is another.

Perhaps Trump’s blunderbuss attacks on Ukraine will soften it up to accept an unsatisfactory but unavoidable deal. Still, the Kremlin is surely taking note that the president of the United States can’t disguise his bitterness toward the weaker, hard-pressed country that Putin wants to humiliate and dismember.

It used to be said that a liberal is too broad-minded to take his own side in a fight. Trump is too consumed with pursuing a deal to acknowledge Ukraine is on our side.

Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.

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